Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2008 January 28

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[edit] January 28

[edit] Different graphic cards

Why do some graphic cards have different company names in front of them. For example, "PNY GeForce xxxx" or "BFG GeForce XXXX". Isn't the GeForce line of graphic cards made exclusively by nVidia? Acceptable (talk) 00:13, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

BFG seem to use the nVidia technology. I would image they have licensed its use from PNY--TreeSmiler (talk) 00:31, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
Both nVidia and ATI license their graphics processing units to other vendors. For example, I have a Dell at work that has a motherboard apparently from Via with an ATI graphics processor on it. It comes up as a Dell Radeon or Via Radeon (depending on the program used to check it). It is not 100% compatible with the official ATI drivers. Of note, Via and IBM also license their own graphics processing units. I know I had a hell of a time with the i810 chip from IBM on a few motherboards. I personally haven't seen any Matrox chips licensed out - but I'm sure they do it also. -- kainaw™ 01:37, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
When looking at different brands, I would recommend XFX or eVGA. Useight (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 02:49, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
nVidia makes the GPU chips. Other companies buy these chips and make video cards out of them. APL (talk) 03:46, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
You could think of GPU vs. graphic card as being similar to CPU vs. a motherboard. The processing unit is a small device which does all the hard-core number crunching, and the mobo\G.card provides the conditions necessary for its operation. There are many brands producing mobos and G.cards (and I think it's roughly the same brands for both), but the processors are made by specialists (for CPUs you have Intel and AMD, and for GPUs you have Nvidia and ATI which now happens to be a part of AMD). -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 13:41, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Essentially Nvidia or AMD design the chip, and either allow the chip design to be made by a 3rd party company for a fee, or ship the chips to the 3rd party. Then they create the board (including the chip) to conform with Nvidias design. Occasionally the 3rd party may increase clock speed of the memory. Most of the cheaper boards are a carbon copy of Nvidias stock design including the fan and whatnot. Companies like XFX, BFG, or Gainward will deviate on designs of the cooler and memory clock, making the graphics card run faster or whatever. There should be no compatibility issues between an Nvidia stock board and a 3rd party one, and they should run using Nvidia's drivers, and I personally have never seen this being an issue. TheGreatZorko (talk) 13:34, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The most convenient library search interface?

Is there a library providing such service:

  • Catalog search: By author, date, publisher, category (fiction, science, ...), catalog number, ...
  • Full text or partial text search: If the book is in public domain, you can look up a book by using full text search. If the book is copyrighted, the search engine searches abstract and available text.

If I know a book's author, I can enter the name. If i want to look up a book about "King James Version", I can search the book's keywords, abstract, or full text. What is your most favorite library search interface? -- Toytoy (talk) 02:54, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

There's no single library out there that contains full text search of books yet. You'll have to rely on Google Books for that at the moment. But in terms of catalog search, every library system out there that I know of allows you to do that. The problem is, of course, that in libraries with LOTS of books, you are going to get TONS of results for any search unless you are very, very specific. For libraries with not so many books, you'll get more manageable results, but from a much smaller set of books. Personally I have never found a good library interface (at many universities and etc. that I have been at) that really found a way to bridge that gap -- to allow for more targeted searches but with depth. I imagine that Google Books will someday probably outperform all existing library catalogs (simply because the people at Google are much more thoughtful about how searching should work than any library IT staff I have met, and I've met a few!), though it currently is still growing. --24.147.69.31 (talk) 03:11, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
This is why I ask this question. Project Gutenberg and many other projects allows us to search inside books. Amazon.com provides search inside as a way to sell more books to confusing customers. I may not know any WW2 author, but I can always search ... . Public libraries need to have a better system to lead people to books.
However, Amazon.com does not seem to have a good enough catalog search interface. Are there any similar search system working under this logic? I mean a business may keep millions documents. You may want a business document, you may want to search by bibliographical data (e.g., 2001 national dealership blah blah ...), or by full text search (e.g., "japanese market"). Are there any system? -- Toytoy (talk) 03:27, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
Public libraries don't have a profit motive and not much money so it's not surprising they haven't invested in the expensive task of digitizing books (Google is reportedly spending $100 million on is endeavors, not including any legal fees). Additionally there are many copyright issues that come from mass digitization, as both Amazon and Google have learned. Project Gutenberg would be very expensive if people were charging them for their time. All in all I think it is a bit unreasonable to expect public libraries to try and pick up that slack, especially when these other resources already exist and are growing on their own accord. It's no great task to use Google Books to look up the citation info for a book and then to plug that into your local library catalog to see if they have it.
To my knowledge, as someone who has worked on such systems, most document retrieval systems are highly specialized to the documents in question -- custom built databases specific to the task. It is not hard to write a system that is searchable by any given number of fields (assuming you have those already entered in somehow -- data entry, in all of this, is the most difficult and prohibitive factor because it requires direct human action) and if you have already scanned things in with OCR is it trivial to make that into a very simple search engine (it is harder to make one like Google Books, of course). --24.147.69.31 (talk) 13:23, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Video editing/compositing software with music sync?

So I came across this video on YouTube recently: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nhizo7KrZrw

And going by the sheer speed of the song and how perfectly Ronald McDonald pantomimes to the music, I'm pretty sure this was made with some video editing software that had the ability to sync up video events with notes in a midi file, or something similar.

What specific video editing software out there for the PC has this capability? If it's a rare feature seen in video software, is there a "likely" software that was used in this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.165.32.244 (talk) 16:13, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I doubt it was done in any way other than just by hand in a non-linear editor. It would take just as long to indicate where in the video file you wanted it to sync up with the MIDI events (and inevitably having to fix things that didn't work as planned) as it would be to just do it all that way from the beginning. But maybe I'm wrong. --24.147.69.31 (talk) 00:19, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Note also that just because it is long doesn't mean that it's hard. The various segments of the music all have the same timing and there is a lot of repetition of actions. Once you set up one set of "Ronald falling backwards on the bench" it's a simple matter of copying and pasting to make it a second time. I counted only about 5 or 6 different elements in my brief watching of it. --24.147.69.31 (talk) 00:23, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Clear reasons why employees need to use their work email accounts

This is a question not about technical specifications but computer usage. A friend of mine works in a small college, part of a larger group, where until recently most staff were freelancers and so used their personal email accounts (webmail such as hotmail or ISPs to their homes). Now most of them have been "hired" by the college and a directive has come down that they should use their work accounts. Some of them cannot see the reasons why: they are comfortable doing what they have always done, including giving their home addresses to students. This friend asked me how to persuade her staff to change and all I could think to say was, "If they don't look in their work in-boxes, they will never see the stuff that is sent from within the organization." She seemed to think that might be perceived as a benefit. Can any of you come up with persuasive reasons? "You have to" is not good enough! I tried searching for terms such as "email policy students" but didn't get anywhere. A similar policy in another company or educational institution would be great, but any ideas are welcome. Thanks! BrainyBabe (talk) 17:29, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I know of a similar policy at a university. Twenty years ago, it made good sense to issue email addresses to students- they were not otherwise easily available. These days, students mostly come in already having an email address which they're comfortable with. I've argued that we should give them a way to tell us what their email address is, and only issue them a new one if they want it. However, it's difficult to get people to move away from tradition. The best answer we've come up with is "if you use our email system, we can guarantee delivery, and those other guys can't." This isn't a particularly valid reason, but it's the best I've heard. Friday (talk) 17:39, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
It allows for consistency. If I have had email conversations/requests through, say, Thomas.Jeffersion@madeupcompany.co.uk and he refers me to his colleague William Shakespeare, I can often 'assume' their email address will be the same setup. It also ensures that you can have consistent branding of your organisation making it easier for people to see the email is from a 'reliable' source. If I got an email from a company like Shell and it came from DaveMadeUp@hotmail.com I would be suspicious - it might not even make it through my spam-filter. Additionally it appears more professional when people are using corporate-accounts as they are often more likely to be Firstname.Surname@company.nationalwebidentifier rather than something stupid such as DaveMadeUp1956@hotmail.com etc. ny156uk (talk) 17:44, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
Good reasons. Another: it allows for sensible handover if a member of staff leaves. If I email fred@localcollege.edu, but Fred has left and Bob has taken over, then the email can be set up to send the mail to Bob instead; or, at worst, bounce, then the user knows their mail didn't get through and can resend it to a generic address. If in the same circumstance I email fred@myhomeisp.com, then it goes to Fred even though he doesn't work there any more, perhaps with confidential information.
Most (though not all) of these advantages still apply if you insist on staff using their company email addresses for work purposes, BUT allow them to set them up to forward to a home address (this is what I do at work). This brings most of the advantages while dealing with most possible objections. Might this be an option? TSP (talk) 18:10, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks guys, keep them coming! The institution's policy, after some enquiry, turns out to refuse staff the right to forward their work email to a home address (not sure whether their technies do anything to prevent this, or it's just that staff aren't supposed to). The directive I referred to is something that came up in a meeting she attended -- "staff should give their work addresses to students". I will make suer she gets all the ideas listed here. Any more? BrainyBabe (talk) 18:23, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
Hotmail and other webmail services may be vectors for spyware, viruses, worms, etc. Are these staff members using computers provided by the institution, and/or connecting to a network provided by the institution? If so, then the network administrators have a responsibility to safeguard if from any/all potential problems. Depending on the nature of the emails being sent and the jurisdiction that the college falls under, there may also be requirements for retention of emails. When one accepts employment with an organization, that doesn't simply mean "oh hey, I get a paycheck now." There are lots of legal policies and requirements that fall onto both parties. If these staff members don't like "you have to" as an answer, then I'm sure they are free to pursue employment someplace where the policies are more the their liking. --LarryMac | Talk 18:52, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
In my experience, most webmail clients have better automatic virus/spam scanning than do most university e-mail services. University IT departments, even at very well-funded universities, are notoriously underfunded, and thus understaffed, underpaid, and underqualified, compared to private companies. --24.147.69.31 (talk) 23:51, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
I was in a situation a bit like this a while ago as an I.T.-based temp worker. My manager decided not to give me an organisational address because it was a bit of a pain to get one. I ended up working there for 16 months with a Hotmail, then Yahoo address. I missed out on departmental email, I got things later than everyone else, I had to make my own backups, my Hotmail address went haywire and started sending 6 copies of every email to any organisational address, and while dealing with urgent problems, I found myself explaining to other members of staff who I was and why I why I was harrassing them. Plus my unprofessional email was not the best thing for communicating with students. By the end of it, I would have killed for a organisational email. --Kateshortforbob 20:48, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
I don't understand why they all need to use it. My university gives everyone an e-mail/computing account, but doesn't require you to use the e-mail, as long as you leave some valid e-mail contact with the university. I have to admit I think it's a pretty stupid policy. Let people use whatever they want, as long as you have someone to e-mail them. It doesn't sound to me like there is a great justification for it, other than, "it pleases management, even though it probably doesn't please you." That's not a good reason. --24.147.69.31 (talk) 23:51, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't mind having to keep a organizational email address. However, it makes no sense to me to not allow forwarding. Hold on, do they allow POP access? If so, you can use Gmail or something to forward it to your proper/default address. Kushalt 00:45, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Does the policy disallow this use? Kushalt 00:49, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Ugh quit whining about having to use the company/school mail server. In case you forgot, the "@domain" part is supposed to be common for everyone on the domain. It makes no design sense to go through other networks to get your email when you have an account on the local domain. Also it's just stupid to have to ask someone their domain when you're both using the SAME NETWORK. Yeah it sounds restrictive but once you're comfortably in the fold, it's nice only having to remember someone's name to email them. And microsoft has some wiggidy-wack enterprise stuff that's fun to play with if your university is microsoft-addicted enough to actually pay for it :D\=< (talk) 03:43, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

People should not have to switch around their mail programs and addresses if they don't want to. My university, for example, has shitty e-mail servers that can't take large attachments, are often down, offers only a very poor webmail client, and will revoke the account the second one graduates. Should one be forced to use them if they'd rather use Gmail? Why? As long as they have an address on file with the university, the university can still get in contact with them. As for other people finding their address, it's actually NOT always desirable to have a firstname.lastname@domain sort of system, because that lets anyone--inside the system and out of it--e-mail you to their heart's content, whether they know you or not. In many situations that is not desirable, hence most universities have multiple levels of privacy settings for that sort of thing. There's no good justification for it, and "quit whining" is a pretty stupid way to justify something that doesn't make a lot of sense. --24.147.69.31 (talk) 17:06, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Fair enough, but remember my OP is about employees, not students (who may wish to be seen as clients). There are operational and legalistic rationales for these policy decisions; I'm interested in how different organizations codify or explain these. The policy, as I understand it, forbids authomatic forwarding of email, so I would imagine that includes POP. Most of what's been posted above is indeed food for thought, and I am grateful. Any more contributions are very welcome. BrainyBabe (talk) 17:31, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Where I work, users can freely send emails to each other within the company's domain. However, if you want to send an email to someone on the outside, you have to attach a statement that the contents are of a non-sensitive nature. Emails to the outside world are automatically scanned, and bounce back if they lack this statement. The point is to reduce the danger of sending sensitive information to the outside world. An example of the dangers involved surfaced in the Norwegian press a couple of years ago when an advisor to the prime minister's office sent a memo to the prime minister before a TV duel with an opposition leader. However, instead of using "post@smk.dep.no", the memo was sent to "post@smk.no" (Smk is an abbreviation for "Statsministerens kontor", the prime ministers office). The problem was that the domain smk.no belonged to a small company, "Skandinavisk Miniatyr Kulelager" whose owner was a local representative of the opposition party. The Norwegian government has since bought the domain, "smk.no". --NorwegianBlue talk 19:14, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Freenet: tracing the source

If I insert a file to Freenet, is it possible for someone to trace who (from what IP) inserted the file? --grawity talk / PGP 19:42, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Not intentionally — it anonymizes everything. Depending on how that is done (if it just uses simple hashes, for example), it might be possible to later re-discover it (e.g. with rainbow tables) but assuming the people who set it up were serious about the project I'd guess that isn't easy and/or feasible at all. --24.147.69.31 (talk) 23:58, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
That's one of the things that Freenet is designed to make difficult. My understanding of it, based on the 2002 IEEE paper, is that the difficulty of tracing an insertion request comes from two things: (a) connections between nodes are encrypted a la HTTPS, and (b) it's hard to tell whether a request originated at your node or is merely being forwarded for someone else. If your node has low activity (e.g. you start up Freenet, insert something, then shut it down again), then traffic analysis may be able to pin a request on you with high probability. If your adversary controls all the nodes that your node knows about, then they can see all requests going in or out and figure out which ones belong to you. Otherwise I think it'd be rather difficult to do this within the network. There are other lines of attack, of course. If your adversary controls your internet connection, they can feed you a compromised version of the Freenet software. If they can get into your home and install a keylogger, all bets are off. If you wrote the document you published, forensic linguistics might be able to tie it back to you. -- BenRG (talk) 17:09, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
My node is running as a service (the default way), and my computer's up for about 5-8 hours a day. And all communications between nodes are encrypted (AFAIK). --grawity talk / PGP 19:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] UPS software

Hi, I am looking for some generic UPS software that above all, tells me how much battery life is left on my line-interactive UPS. Monitoring VA usage etc. would be nice. My UPS is a no-name brand and comes with some crappy software that doesn't tell me much. I downloaded WinPower but it refuses to detect the UPS and I think WinPower is limited to certain UPS's anyway. I am using Windows XP. Thanks. Sandman30s (talk) 19:45, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I assume you have already tried the built-in Windows Power Management UPS features? It supports a very broad variety of UPSs, right out of the box. --Mdwyer (talk) 20:36, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
You mean the UPS Tab of Power Options in Control Panel? I fiddled with the polarity settings there a bit, but it kept on shutting down my PC. Unless there is a bit more than just that tab? Sandman30s (talk) 21:25, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
Yep, sorry. That's all I can guess. Incidently, cheap UPSs usually don't do true serial signalling. They're unable to report things like their load and status. They will often just raise or lower handshake lines. They're only able to report one or two digital statuses. They can say, "I'm on battery", "The battery is dying" and that's it. --Mdwyer (talk) 21:59, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] meta.xml

Both Microsoft Office and OpenOffice now use XML-based file formats. Are there tools that allow me to batch convert text or other files to XML-based formats and then append file properties to each file?

Foe example, can you download books from Project Gutengerg and compile a catalog using a spreadsheet (e.g., file name, URL, book title, author, date, ...) and then convert the files to .odt and append each book's bibliographical data to the .odt file so each file becomes a self-contained source of data?

The .odt format saves files properties in meta.xml. I think it is possible to write a too to generate meta.xml files and then replace the original meta.xml with user-generated meta.xml.

I can use a desktop search engine to retrieve books.

Are there any available tools? -- Toytoy (talk) 19:58, 28 January 2008 (UTC)